


Monster

by orphan_account



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Ableism, Ableist Language, Canon-Typical Violence, Disabled Character, F/F, Homelessness, Implied/Referenced CSA, Misogyny, Original Character(s), discussions of touka's mother, fifteenth ward, ghoul culture, ghoul families, takes place after the first series and before the second
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-10-16
Packaged: 2018-08-16 02:30:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8083177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Anteiku burns. Touka, plunged back into the world of ghouls, makes a few unpleasant deals.





	1. Chapter 1

Touka has sixty thousand yen in paper bills, a sleepover bag with basic hygiene essentials, and a useless biology textbook. Yomo has another hundred thousand emergency yen, an unconvincing fake ID, and an aging Toshiba laptop. Hinami has a backpack, three horror novels, and the clothes on her back. 

Touka does the math in her head as Yomo busies around the long-stay motel room, unpacking the duffel bag he threw together. He managed to grab a good amount of clothes and supplies. Even snagged her coffeepot before they fled out the window. 

Hinami’s on her hands and knees, searching under the table for an outlet. Touka is vaguely aware of her body, vaguely aware that she is just sitting on the edge of the bed, watching the other two work, and that maybe she should help. She doesn’t stand up. 

Hinami climbs to her feet and turns the coffeepot on. The water filter gurgles to life. “I’m going to make decaf,” she says.

Yomo sits on the other bed and turns on the TV, flicks to the news. That ghoul researcher, Ogura or whatever, is sharing a screen with an on-site reporter. Anteiku burns lazily behind them. 

Yomo crosses his arms, leans forward. Hinami focuses hard on the coffeepot.

“I’m getting some air,” she says, standing up. 

“Be careful,” Yomo says. He doesn’t say any more than that, and she’s grateful.

Their room is on the second floor of a chain motel. She takes the stairs down to the parking lot, and uses two hundred yen to buy an ice coffee from the vending machine. 

The parking lot overlooks an industrial district, busy during the day but abandoned at night. She stops on the edge of the parking lot, out of view of cars driving past and people entering and leaving the rooms. She sits on a boulder and drinks the coffee, shuddering a little at the bitter, watery taste. 

Her phone hums in her jeans pocket.

She knows who it’s going to be before she even looks at it, knows there’s only one person left in the world who would call her. She lets it ring a few times, but she’s not strong enough to end the call. 

“ Touka,”  Yoriko is breathless. “Why didn’t you respond to my texts? I was so worried!”

“Um,” Touka says. “Crazy night.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Your cafe is all over the news. God,  Touka .” Yoriko’s voice breaks. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Touka says. Her voice sounds far away. 

“Are you with the police?” Yoriko says. “Are they taking good care of you?”

“Um,” Touka says. 

Yorika swallow wetly on the other end. “Did you have any idea?” she whispers. “The whole time you were surrounded by-“ 

Touka hangs up. Her breath puffs out into the night. Her ears sting with cold. 

“Fuck,” she says loudly. 

Hinami is in the shower when she gets back. Yomo is still on the bed, watching TV. 

She stands above Yomo, her arms crossed. “So,” she says, and clears her throat. She knows Hinami can hear her even over the pounding water. “What are you going to do now?”

Yomo flicks his gaze over her before looking back to the TV. “Lay low,” he says. “Old man destroyed the documents. But they’ll be looking for escapees.” 

“I know that.” She bites her lip. “I mean, are you sticking around Tokyo, or you got other plans?”

He meets her gaze at that. “The three of us stick together,” he says. 

“Okay,” she says, sounding too small. She sits down. “We’ll need a plan, then,” she says. “But first we’ll sleep.”

He smiles at that. Her phone buzzes in her pocket. She ignores it. 

* * *

Hinges squeal and wood snaps. Heartbeats churn into the room. An arm wraps around her waist. Touka crying out, fighting to get to her feet.

Yomo drags her back, off the bed. Hinami is gasping something. Gunshots crack, and Touka feels pain burn in her cheek, her shoulder. 

Glass crunches and she is falling.

They hit the concrete. All the air goes out of her, and she feels the bruises down to her bone. She stands, almost falls. Her head swims. It’s not quite morning, the sky gray. Footsteps pound. She looks up. Soldiers soldiers soldiers, at least a dozen with guns, another  crack and her arm burns. 

Yomo moves next to her. She follows him, her bare feet on pavement, her lungs still empty. “Hinami,” she manages. “Hina-“ She hears Hinami’s heartbeat behind them. 

Yomo leads her around the corner. He jumps into the air, kagune unfurling, and clambers to the rooftop. She bursts after him, kicking out at the sides of buildings until she reaches the rooftop. 

“We left Hinami-“ she gasps. 

“She went the other way.”

He glances back, then starts to take off again. 

“But-“ He’s already gone. She jumps from the edge of the roof, using her kagune to power her forward. She crashes into the next rooftop, gets back up, but her body is shaking from exhaustion and hunger and she has to let her kagune retract. Yomo is already two buildings away. She sprints after him just in time to see him drop back to street level. 

She leaps from fire escape to dumpster, stumbling down next to him. He steadies her. “They’ll be following us,” he says. “Come on.” 

“Hinami-“ She’s gagging for air now. “We left-“

“She went the other way.”

“What?” 

He fixes his steely gaze on her for a moment before turning his attention back to the street. “She saw where we were going, and she deliberately turned and ran a different way. She wanted to be separated.”

“But-“

He starts running again. She chases after him. 

They turn down an alley. The buildings here are less industrial, more business-oriented. He stops by a back door next to a dumpster, and presses his ear against the door for a moment. Then he puts his shoulder to the door and shoves. The door groans as the hinges pop. “Come on,” he says, when he sees her hesitate. 

Once they’re both inside, he repositions the door behind them. 

Touka blinks, adjusting to the gloom, taking in the rows of groceries. She makes out familiar branding. They’re in a seven eleven.

Outside, bodies rush through the alley. Low, indistinguishable shouts make her flinch. But none of the humans go into the store. 

“Head down,” Yomo says quietly. She blinks up, then ducks behind her hair when she sees the security camera above the register. They wait by the door another minute. She doesn’t relax, even when the sound of humans fades away. 

“How’d they know where we were?” she whispers. “I thought we were safe.”

He frowns. “I don’t know.” He looks the store over. “We can’t go back there.” 

Both of their shirts are ripped from kagune and bullet wounds, and she knows they won’t be able to blend in with humans for more than a minute without shoes. She figures if they’re on a crime spree, they might as well find a clothing store to rob. 

Yomo starts for the door. “Wait,” she says. She goes behind the counter and grabs a plastic bag. Then she runs down the aisles and grabs a box of blond hair dye, then a box of brown. She fills the bag with toothpaste, toothbrushes, a water bottle, travel-sized shampoo bottles, and a comb. She goes and pries the register open, but it’s empty. 

Yomo nods as she goes back over to him. “Smart,” he says. He scrutinizes the security camera through his bangs. “Let’s go.”

There’s another pedestrian on the street, a jogger with headphones. They wait until she turns the corner to go out onto the sidewalk. Her bullet wounds ache. She wonders if Hinami got hurt. She wonders if Hinami is dead.

“Maybe she went the other way by accident,” she says, jogging after Yomo. “Maybe she’s looking for us.”

He doesn’t say anything. 

He crosses the street with purpose, heading towards a higher-end retailer on the corner. He taps the glass door, and frowns. 

“What?”

“Alarmed,” he says. 

They jog another block. Yellow streaks the sky, and distant traffic makes Touka bite her lip. 

Yomo goes into another alley behind a second-hand shop. He breaks down the door, and she follows him inside. The shop is dim from morning light. She tries to stay out of view of the windows as she heads towards the shoe aisle. She grabs the first pair of sneakers in her size, and tucks a pair of smaller pink flats into her plastic bag. 

“She has better hearing than any of us,” Yomo says. It’s the first complete sentence he’s said in ten minutes, and she’s almost startled enough to drop the bag. “If she wants to find us, she can.”

“Maybe she’s in trouble.” Touka stalks towards a sweater rack and begins to dig through it. Most of the clothes here are too big for her.

“She’s not.” 

“How do you know that?” She throws an ugly-ass grey sweatshirt on the floor in frustration. “The same way you knew we were safe there?”

He’s quiet for a moment. “Hinami’s description was on the news last night, along with dozens of other suspected ghouls in the area,” he says. “The news told people to be on the lookout for ghouls running from the raid. The clerk must have recognized her and called the CCG.”

“They’re looking for all of us by now,” she says.

“They’re looking for her.”

She whirls on him and screams in frustration. He tenses at the sound, and she doesn’t care.

“Did you ditch her on purpose?” she yells. 

“No,” he says.

“But you didn’t make her come with us.”

He doesn’t say anything.

She can feel her blood roaring in her ears, she can feel her heart in her throat. “Why bother lying if you’re just going to leave me, too?” He doesn’t react. “I hate you,” she says. 

He looks at her, and then he looks away, scanning the window. “Get dressed,” he says. “We need to go.” 

She gets dressed. 

* * *

Touka has a stolen black sweatshirt, stolen sneakers, an empty box of blond hair dye, a comb she snapped in frustration, her blood-stained jeans, no money, and a cellphone with 19% charge.

She calls Yoriko outside the convenience store while Yomo uses the bathroom to wash the dye out of his hair. 

The phone rings for a long time, and she almost thinks Yoriko won’t pick up. 

“Hey,” Yoriko says quietly. 

“Hey,” Touka says. She licks her lips, and waits. Yoriko doesn’t say anything.

“You might - you might get some people asking after me,” Touka says. Her voice sounds hoarse. She coughs a little. “We - you have a lot of photos of me. Recent stuff the police could use in wanted photos. If they found out you were friends with me they would, I just want - “ 

“If I talk you’ll what, kill me?” Yoriko says coolly.

“It’s not like that-“ Touka snaps, then exhales harshly into the phone. “God, it’s, it’s not like that, okay? It was  never like that -“ 

“Then come back, Touka.”

“You know I can’t,” Touka says in a low voice. “You’re not dumb, you know that I’m,” she ducks her head down. 

“A ghoul,” Yoriko says. 

“Yeah,” Touka says. 

“I’m trying to picture all the people you must have murdered,” Yoriko says quietly. “People with families and friends and jobs and hobbies and lives.” 

Touka goes very still, her head buzzing. She can barely hear anything except the rasp of Yoriko’s breath, can’t feel anything except the hard cut of plastic into her cheek.

“It’s not like that,” Touka says again, even though this time she’s lying. 

“You don’t have to worry,” Yoriko says. Her voice is still cool, but it’s trembling, about to crack. “I’m not going to tell anyone, at least not right now. I’m sentimental, I guess. But if you ever really cared about me at all, you’ll turn yourself in and face justice for your crimes.”

Touka is frozen in place.

A hand on her shoulder. She turns and Yomo takes the phone from her. Hangs up Yoriko. Looks at her for a long moment. 

“We need to go,” he says. His hair is wet from the sink, dark brown from the box. “Not investigators. But I recognize this street. We’re in the fifteenth ward in Rat Yagira territory.”

“Rat Yagira?” She only vaguely recognizes the name. 

“We need to go.” He scrutinizes her. “You should probably ditch the phone,” he says. “If your ID is compromised, then they can trace your number.” 

“Okay,” she says.

He waits, giving her a chance to object. Then he drops the cell phone to the ground.

* * *

 

The house is wedged into a corner between a laundromat and an convenience store. It's narrow, tall and bruised. There’s a windows covered with a plastic sheet, broken lawn chairs stacked on the porch, and all the paint is peeling.

The steps groan under her feet. She stands behind Yomo as he knocks and waits. 

“You can’t be here,” the woman says when she opens the door. Touka doesn’t recognize her, but she can smell  _ ghoul ghoul ghoul _ on the woman’s skin. Inside the house, three more heartbeats putter.

“We just need somewhere to stay for a few days,” Yomo says. “Till I can get the papers figured out.” 

“We?” The woman narrows her eyes at Touka. “That Hikari’s girl?”

“Yeah,” Yomo says. 

“Where’s the brother?”

“Gone.”

“All right,” the woman says, and considers. 

“Who’s Hikari?” Touka says, even though her stomach is twisting up and she thinks she already knows. Stupid, stupid, to never even know the name. 

Neither of them answer her. The woman steps back, opening the door wider. Touka follows Yomo inside. 

There’s another woman folding laundry in the cramped living room. Touka takes a moment to examine them both. The woman who answered the door is in her late twenties, with a crooked nose like it’s been broken more than once. The woman folding laundry is maybe a three years older than Touka. She doesn’t have any legs below the knees. Touka tries not to stare. 

“This is Koreeda Kyoko,” Yomo says, gesturing at the woman with the crooked nose. “Her sister, Koreeda Ayu. This is Kirishima Touka.” 

“Hikari’s kid,” Ayu says. 

“How did you know my mom?” Touka asks, tensely. 

Ayu smiles in the ghoul way, baring her teeth. “Renji, I don’t know what you’re doing, bringing all this trouble here.” 

“Touka’s not trouble,” Yomo says. 

Touka surveys the living room. It’s dark, the only light coming from the half-closed blinds and the glow from the TV. Kid’s toys litter the floor around the couch. The carpet under her feet is blue and ragged. 

“Mama?” A tiny boy, five or six years, clings to the banister at the top of the stairs. “Who is she?”

Touka manages not to show surprise when Ayu answers. “That’s Touka.” She gives Yomo a hard look. “She’s going to be a guest for a few days. Takami, will you show Touka to the extra room?” 

The little boy, Takami, nods and waits. Touka looks at Yomo, and realizes they’re going to have this conversation without her. She tries not to let her frustration show as she climbs the stairs.

Takami leads her down the hallway to a tiny room at the very end. There’s no room for anything but a futon, a tiny closet, and a narrow bookshelf, but there is a window. 

“This is my aunt’s room,” Takami tells her importantly. 

“Kyoko’s?” 

“No, my other aunt,” he says like it’s obvious. “Yuuki. She would stay here on the weekends when she came back from school. But she hasn’t come back in a long time. Months and months.”

“Oh.”

“I think she’s probably dead,” he tells her, and skips off, uncaring. Touka stands in the doorway for a moment, taking the room in. She recognizes some of the titles on the bookshelf, shojo Tankobon and paperbacks with flashy titles. There’s a poster from a movie she doesn’t recognize above the bed. She starts to think Yuuki was the youngest sister, maybe even younger than her. 

She goes back downstairs. Yomo’s at the door, his shoulders hunched over. He flinches when he hears her on the steps. 

“Where are you going?” she asks, trying to sound calm.

He flicks his gaze over Ayu, still on the couch, and Kyoko, leaning against a wall with her arms crossed. Then he looks back at her.

“Hysy,” he says after a long pause. “Uta knows some people. He’ll help me make sure our ID is solid, and he’ll get us a place to live.” 

“Okay, I’ll come with you.” She starts to move towards him. 

He shakes his head, fast. “No,” he says. “It’s dangerous.”

“What?” she almost laughs at that. “I know Uta. I’ve been to Hysy a million times.”

“No,” he says, and he straightens, and his eyes are dark. Ayu focuses on the laundry, and Kyoko pretends to be fascinated by the TV. 

“You don’t know Uta,” he says. “Not like this. I don’t want you dealing with - with the ghoul world like this?”

“The ghoul world?” Now she really does laugh, short and uncomfortable. “My family register has been worthless since I was five. You know - you know I was homeless for  years right? I’m not some soft little kid like, like, I’m not like  Hinami,  jesus, I’m not like  Kaneki.”  She says it angrily, just to see him flinch. “I know how to be a ghoul. I know how to  survive as a ghoul.” 

“Yeah,” he says. “I know you do.” And then he leaves. 

She stares at the shut door in a mixture of shock and embarrassment. Kyoko leaves the room. Ayu returns to folding stacks of clothes. 

Touka’s cheeks are burning. She stands instead of racing after him and tearing him a new one, because that hasn’t really been working out for her. 

“So you’re tough stuff, huh?” Ayu says absently without looking up at her. 

Touka tenses, trying to get a read off her direction. When Ayu doesn’t say anything more, Touka says, “I’ve been fighting for my life since I was little. I’m not afraid of Uta or whatever dark shit Yomo has squirreled away.”

“Fighting. Oh, I know all about that.” Ayu shakes her head. 

Brave words from a woman without legs, Touka thinks but doesn’t say.

“What kind of deal do you think Yomo is going to have to make to get your place sorted out? To get the money you two need? What kinds of deals have you had to make to get what you need, Touka?”

Touka frowns. “I don’t make deals,” she says. “If I need something, and someone’s stopping me, then I just fight.”

Ayu sneers at that, twisting her pretty features. “That’s cute, Touka-Chan,” she says. “I have another question for you. How do you think I lost my legs?”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Touka gets to know the people she will be staying with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's lots and lots of talking in this chapter, because I like writing dialogue too much.  
> This chapter contains a small reference to a past teenager/adult relationship. There will be more discussion of this relationship and others like it in the next chapter. If this kind of content is hard for you to read, please take caution with this story.

It wasn’t in a fight. 

Kyoko leaves, dressed in a waitress’s uniform. She has two part-time jobs, Ayu explains, one at a low-end diner and the other as a night parking lot attendant. She offers no other information, and when she finishes folding clothes, pushes herself off the couch and into a manual wheelchair.

Touka watches TV for a few minutes, brain slowed to a crawl. She jumps a little when Ayu shouts her name.

She scurries into the kitchen. Ayu’s parked at the table, cutting strips of meat smoothly and elegantly. “Stir that,” she says, nodding at a pot on the stove. Touka hurries to obey her. The pot is mostly bone and broth, but it still smells good enough to remind her of her empty stomach.

The kitchen is just as lived-in as the rest of the house. Picture books scatter over the table, and a toy truck is stuck under one of the chairs. Binders full of receipts and bills are stacked on top of the microwave. Touka doesn’t see any spices in the cupboards, any human food in the pantry. Even back at her apartment she would at least keep a few packets of ramen. The house wouldn’t pass inspection by a mailman, much less the CCG. 

Ayu says, not looking up from her chopping, “Can you pour some coffee and take it to the second floor, the first room on the right?”

“All right,” Touka says after a moment. She know she can be volatile and rash, but she also knows how to be polite, and she knows these people are letting her be here when she has nowhere else to be. 

She finds the mugs crammed into a shelf next to the sink. Next to the coffee pot is a little bowl of blood cubes. At Ayu’s nod, she drops one, then two into the cup, and carefully carries it up the stairs then down the hall, trying not to feel too much deja vu.

Before she even opens the door she’s already picked apart the weak stutter in the heartbeat coming from the room. The woman on the bed is old, one of the oldest ghouls she’s ever seen, her skin weathered and gray. Oxygen tubes travel from her nose and into a machine on the floor. The grandma opens her eyes to reveal active kakugan. 

“Yuki?” the grandmother says sleepily. Touka freezes. The grandmother shakes her head.

“No, no, you’re our guest. I heard my daughters talking. Hikari’s child. Kirishima Touka.”

“How did you know my mother?” Touka asks, trying to sound casual as she sets the cup on the nightstand.

The grandmother sits up a little, positioning herself back. She takes the coffee with veined, shaking hands, miraculously bringing it to her mouth without spilling any. “Oh, years and years ago when she was just a baby - her mother would bring her over when she went to work. That was before her parents - your grandparents - were killed. After that I didn’t see much of her until she was older.” 

“My grandparents were killed?” Touka tries to hide the emotion in her voice. She doesn’t know why she’s even surprised. 

“It’s a sad story,” the grandmother said. “A familiar one.” She sets her coffee down. “After that, Hikari was too unrestrained and angry to stay around for long.” 

“I never met anyone who knew my mother,” Touka says despite herself. The words come out fast. “I remember her barely at all, not like I remember Dad.”

“I met Arata once,” the grandmother says, smiling huge. “You look a lot like him.”

For some reason, the words make her feel a little sick. She whispers her thanks and leaves the room, stumbling back into the kitchen. 

Ayu is dropping slices of meat onto the frying pan. Touka’s mouth fills with saliva.

“When was the last time you ate?” Ayu asks, stirring the meat with a wooden spoon. 

“I - don’t know. Four days? Five?” 

“That’s too long. We eat every other day here. Smaller amounts. Otherwise you start to make rash decisions. You’ll need to eat too if you’re going to be living with us for any time.” 

“Okay,” Touka says, the smell making agreement easy. “I never knew ghouls who lived in a house like this before.” 

Ayu squints up at her. “That’s because we’re careful. The ghouls in this area have a system worked out, and there are rules you need to follow.” 

“There are other ghouls? How many?”

“Thirty-nine, but I don’t know any of their names or faces. We always wear masks to meetings. It’s safer that way. If the doves catch one of us, we can’t be made to talk.” Ayu stirs the meat again.

Touka thinks that sounds kind of isolated, but she’s not really one to talk about isolation. 

“There’s no hunting allowed in the territory, from the Seibu railway line to the edge of the fifteenth ward. The rest of the fifteenth ward is divided between two gangs, the Sunflower Boys and the Coyote Pack. Not many families there. Don’t go into those territories unless you’re prepared to fight.”

“Okay,” Touka says, nodding. “But there’s no gang activity here?”

“This territory belongs to Rat Yagira,” Ayu says. 

“Oh,” Touka says. Yomo had mentioned him. 

“The Rat and his Scavengers might technically be in charge, but they aren’t very many. There are about ten of them, and if we wanted to, the peaceful ghouls in the area could drive them out. But most of the Scavengers come from our households, and they’re fathers, brothers, sons and husbands.” Ayu turns off the frying pan. “The Scavengers mostly enforce the rules, watch out for doves, and keep the other gangs out of our territory.”

Touka nods. It sounds like a rougher version of Anteiku. She’s starting to understand why Yomo brought her here. “Do you go outside of the ward to hunt?”

Ayu shakes her head. “We have a deal worked out with the morgues in the area.”

“The morgues?” Touka blinks. “We always collected the bodies of suicide victims.”

“Yomo told me. There aren’t any good locations for that around here, so we have to go through different channels. There are a thousand different physical tests you have to pass to get a license as a mortician or doctor or even a gravedigger, but we have deals worked out with humans in some of those vocations.”

“Humans?” Touka asks incredulously. 

“Humans who are being paid a good amount of money.” Ayu frowns. “There’s another territory meeting tonight. You’ll have to go with Kyoko. One of the rules. No one comes in the territory without announcing themselves.”

She scoops the fried meat onto a plate, and deposits it in front of Touka along with a fork. 

Touka looks down. “You didn’t have to,” she says. “I don’t want to take your food.” 

“If you’re going to be staying here, you need to eat,” Ayu says. “So you’ll owe us a favor. No big deal.” She eyes Touka, up and down. “I wouldn’t mind the Rabbit owing us a favor.”

Touka tenses up, but doesn’t try to deny it. “How’d you guess?

“The stories describe a female ghoul with winglike ukaku, who moved so fast your eyes couldn’t follow her.” Ayu shrugs, turning her wheelchair up to the table next to Touka. “Your mother was almost the same.”

Touka picks up her fork but doesn’t start eating. “Sounds like everyone knew my mom except me.” 

Ayu’s expression goes from matter-of-fact to somber, fast enough that Touka almost starts to like her. “I didn’t know her,” she says. “My grandmother and Kyoko told me stories about her. There didn’t used to be gangs around here, you know. There were just ghouls you wouldn’t mess with, mothers who wouldn’t let you come into their neighborhood without a fight so bloody it wasn’t worth it.” 

Touka’s heart is pounding. She skewers a piece of meat, brings it to her mouth, and chews. “If you know I’m the Rabbit, you know I don’t have a mask to wear,” she says quietly. 

Ayu smiles big at that. “Don’t worry, we’ve got backups.” 

* * *

“This is a joke, right?” 

Ayu struggles to keep a straight face. Kyoko snorts out laughter from where she sits at the kitchen table.

“I’m not wearing this,” Touka says, even though she’s already given in. 

“If you’re going to be posing as our cousin, you have to wear our family mask.” Kyoko tightens the last lace of her boots, and stands up. When Touka doesn't move, Kyoko shoots her an impatient look. “Come on,” she says. “I’ve got to be at my shift in two hours. The sooner we get in and out, the better.” 

Swearing under her breath, Touka tucks the freaking  Spiderman mask into her coat pocket. “Who the hell decided on that?” she asks, trailing after Kyoko.

Ayu snickers from the couch. 

“I want to come,” Takami says sleepily, his head drooping on Ayu’s shoulder.

Kyoko drops a kiss on his forehead. “Maybe in ten years.” Takami pushes her away, wrinkling his nose. Kyoko nods back at Touka, and they head out onto the street.

Touka feels an anxiety building in her stomach, piling up on top of her paranoia. She doesn’t have Yomo’s number memorized, and even if she did, he’s probably ditched his phone by now. He’s been gone for twelve hours. 

Back at Anteiku, she wouldn’t see him for days. He can take care of himself, she thinks. Kyoko must notice how quiet she’s being, because she glances back at her.

“Where you from?”

Touka’s ready for this one. “I’m your cousin. I’m from the ninth ward, same as your dad’s side of the family.” 

“And why are you here?”

“Ran out of money, got evicted, needed a place to crash. Looking for a job to help me get back on my feet.” 

Kyoko nods. “One of the families, the ones wearing theater masks, has ties to the ninth ward. They might quiz you. Who’s ward leader right now?”

“Used to be Queen Blue. She didn’t demand much except respect and a ten percent cut, so we all got along. But Aogori took her out a few months ago, and since then everyone’s staying quiet, waiting for the tree to move in.”

Kyoko smiles with a lot of teeth. “You’re good at memorization.” She sniffs, and frowns. “I can still smell you through Ayu’s coat. We’ll have to hope no one there frequented Anteiku. And whatever you do, don’t show your kagune. Some people knew Hikari, and they’d know her daughter, and they’d know you weren't the unemployed nobody you’re going to be tonight.”

Touka nods. They turn a corner, moving through a more worn-down area, the shop windows barred up. Half the buildings have foreclosed signs. She smells rotting wood and dust. Heartbeats and mumbled voices prick through the walls. Kyoko pulls her mask over her head, and Touka copies her, inhaling the smell of cheap plastic. 

“Just stay quiet and it’ll be fine,” Kyoko says quietly.

Touka nods. “Thank you,” she says, a little awkwardly. “You guys are really, really helping us out.” 

Kyoko shrugs. Touka is starting to figure these two out, and she can tell Kyoko wasn’t expecting to be thanked. 

“It’s only a few days,” Kyoko says after a moment. 

They turn into an alley. A ghoul wearing a grimy sweatshirt stands with her arms crossed outside a dilapidated building, her face hidden by a weasel mask. She nods at Kyoko, and pushes open the door to a dilapidated apartment building. 

Touka follows Kyoko inside, sneezing on the dust. They creep down a dark hallway, the light dim enough that she runs her hand along the walls to guide her way. A ghoul wearing a Vulture mask guards a door to an apartment room. He turns his masked head to watch Touka. She stares straight ahead, ignoring him. 

A ghoul in a Raccoon mask stands at the door inside the apartment. The apartment walls have all been torn down, creating one single large room. Moonlight streams in through empty window frames. A handful of ghouls wait in the center of the room, some of them sitting or leaning at walls, a few muttering at each other.

At the far end of the apartment, a ghoul in a rat mask sits in an aging armchair, flanked by a hyena-masked ghoul. She eyes the ghoul in the rat mask, pretty sure she knows who it is.

“You didn’t tell me the meeting was run by Rat and the scavengers,” she breathes to Kyoko, so quiet on Hinami would have been able to spy on them. 

Kyoko shakes her head. “They’re not running it,” she says in a normal voice. “They’re here for protection.” 

The way Rat Yagira sits, it doesn’t look like he’s here just to protect. She turns her attention to the ten ghouls in the center, matching them up in her head to what Ayu and Kyoko had told her about the families.Two theater masks - be careful, that family is from the ninth ward, they might grow suspicious.One in a mask like a Kabuki painted face. One demon, one Mr. Punch mask, two personified suns, then three identical masks designed to imitate a kendo mask. Ten in total - Family representatives. 

She guesses the type of mask denotes the family. It was different in Anteiku. They weren’t cautious about showing their faces to each other, only to doves. Most of them were drifters from other wards, many of them without family registrars. She guesses these people have more to loose. 

A human perches on the window seat a camera around her neck, fiddling with phone carelessly. Their ambassador to the morgue. Ayu had explained her, and even given her name, Chie Hori. Touka still blinks in disbelief at the human’s calm. 

“Who’s this?” one of the kendo ghouls says, tilting their head at Touka. “Baby spider came back? 

“Not her,” Mr. Punch says, sniffing and stepping forward. 

“She’s my cousin from the ninth-“ 

“Think we’re stupid, Spider?” A sun mask hisses, rising from her crouch. “The twentieth ward turns into a dove nest, and the next day you show up with a stranger. What’s she paying you?” 

“She’s family,” Kyoko spits. “I brought her as a courtesy. It’s not important.” 

The kendo ghoul starts towards her, but another kendo ghoul grabs their shoulder, pulling them back.

“How long are you going to stay?” he asks Touka. 

“Not long,” Touka says in a low voice. At some point, she’s half stepped in front of Kyoko. She curls her toes in her boots. “Just until I can get back on my feet. I’m thinking of going back to school.”

“So you have a clean identity?” the kendo ghoul asks.

She nods, her throat dry. 

“This is bullshit,” Sun Mask says. “She’s obviously from twentieth. ‘Not long’ is long enough for doves to hunt her down and tear this ward apart in the process.”

Kendo ignores her. “Did Spider explain the rules to you?”

Touka nods. “No hunting,” she says. “No fighting in the territory without permission from the Rat. No leaving the ward without permission from the ghoul leader of the territory you are approaching, and permission from the Rat. No bringing anyone into the ward without announcing. No telling humans what you are. Fifteen percent of all income goes to the Scavengers, for ward protection fees.”

Kendo says, “We’ve no business telling the Spiders to abandon one of their own, and there’s no proof she’s from the twentieth.” 

“I agree,” Mr. Punch says, and the demon mask nods. The theater family glances at each other, mutters something low, then nods. Sun shrugs and steps back. 

“Since you’ve decided not to kill her, you guys ready to talk business?” Chie chirps from the windowsill. She pulls a laptop out of her backpack, opens it, and starts typing furiously. “K-san emailed me. She says there’s an extra set of guards circling the morgue. She’s planning on bribing one of the guards, but you’ll need to pay an extra twenty thousand yen per unit.” 

“That’s bullshit,” Sun snaps. “Did she already talk to this guy? He’s just going to ask for more.”

Chie shrugs. “After he gets involved, she thinks she can lower it to ten thousand or even less. Once he can get arrested along with her, he won’t have a lot of room to negotiate.”

“She should have talked to us,” A theater mask says, crossing their arms. “He’ll take the money and have her arrested anyway.”

“She told me the same,” Chie says. “She wants one of you to shadow him at the hospital tonight until the deal is done. Make sure he knows it’s in his best interest to play along.” 

“Smart girl,” Mr. Punch says, a smile in his voice. “He doesn’t have an ambassador.” 

“Twenty thousand is still too much,” Sun says. “Ten thousand is too much.”

“Sorry,” Chie says, shrugging again. “It’s not her price, it’s his, and he’s holding all the cards right now. I take it you guys will want to adjust your orders, given the new information.”

The kendo ghouls whisper to each other. Touka glances around the room uneasily. She’s never bought meat before, but she knows twenty thousand is a lot of money.

The demon mask hands Chie an envelope. He turns back to them, nods at Touka, and leaves the room without another word. The other families take longer. One of the Kendo ghouls leaves for a few minutes, returning with a wad of bills.

Kyoko finds a corner and makes a phone call. Touka recognizes Ayu’s voice on the other end. They talk about numbers, which makes Touka turn her head away to give them some privacy. 

“Onee-san,” a ghoul says.

Touka cringes, looking up, but the ghoul is looking at Kyoko, not her. It’s one of the scavengers, the hyena. He takes off his mask, even though there are a still a dozen ghouls and one human in the room. Underneath is a man, twenty-five or so, with a broad jaw and long, floppy hair. 

“What do you want?” Kyoko asks, her voice a little flat.

Hyena smiles sweetly. “Don’t worry about the money,” he says. “I’ll cover the guard’s fee. Consider it a gift.”

“Thank you,” Kyoko says stiffly. She says goodbye to Ayu and flips the phone shut. “Thank you a lot.”

“I’ll be right back,” Hyena says, heading towards the door. 

“I didn’t know you had a brother,” Touka says quietly.

Kyoko shakes her head. “That’s Takami’s father,” she says. “Ayu’s husband.”

“Oh,” Touka says, and feels a little sick when she adds up all the ages. “I didn’t know.” 

“There’s nothing to know,” Kyoko says. “It’s just the way it is.” She looks away. “He’s not too bad. He pays for Takami’s upbringing.” 

Hyena returns with an envelope of cash. Kyoko pays Chie enough money for a unit and a half of meat, however much a unit is. Hyena walks them to the door without saying anything. 

“That went okay,” Kyoko sighs, pulling off her mask as they start back to the house. “Could have been worse. They could have killed you.”

“They could have tried,” Touka says, just for the principle of the thing. 

Kyoko bursts into laughter. 

* * *

 

Touka hears Yomo’s heartbeat before she sees him. She hesitates at the doorway to the kitchen, swallows, and walks up to the table.

“Good morning,” she says. 

He nods at her, his face blank. There are dark shadows under his eyes, like he didn’t sleep at all. 

She can hear Ayu murmuring something to the grandmother in the other room. Kyoko is gone, probably already at work. 

She pours herself a cup of coffee, and sits down across from Yomo.

“Where were you?” she says. 

Takami runs through the kitchen and up to the front door, scuffing on his shoes and throwing his tiny backpack over his shoulders. He shouts a goodbye to Ayu before rushing outside. 

Touka waits. 

“I was with Uta,” Yomo says. “He can get us an ID. Not good enough to hold up to a serious background check, but enough for us to work. He can get us money, too, enough to get an apartment.” He slides his thumb over his mug. “I need to do him a favor.”

“What kind of favor?” she says, trying not tense up in front of him.

He shakes his head. “You’re not getting involved,” he says. 

“What kind of favor?” she repeats, and her voice goes up a little too high.

He drains the last of his coffee, and stands, setting the mug in the sink. 

“I’ll need to be gone for three days,” he says. “I bought a burner phone. I’ll give you the number, so you can contact me if anything happens. Kyoko and Ayu are okay with you staying here for that long.” 

She can hear the hysteria rising in her words. “Why are you doing this?” she says. “You know I’m capable. You know I’m not naive. I won’t be shaken by whatever you have to do.”

“I know you won’t,” he says. “I  know you can handle it. I just don’t want you to have to, is all.” He talks fast, all his words getting jumbled. “When you lived wild before, you were a kid, and you didn’t have any other choice. What happened to you and Ayato was awful. It shouldn’t have to be this way.”

“But you shouldn’t have to do it on your own, either,” she says.

“I’m not alone,” he says. “Uta will be there. We’ve lived in this world together for a long time. Not because we had to, because we chose to. You understand?” 

She understands.

“It’s awful,” he says. “It’s just awful. What I have to do to earn what we need. I know you’ve been there before and you’ve done some terrible things. I just don’t want you to be there with me. I don’t want to share that with you.” 

His arm moves. He reaches out, stops himself before he can touch her shoulder. “You understand, right?” he says. “Three days. I promise.”

“Okay,” she says in a small voice.

He doesn’t come back in three days.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Touka makes some new enemies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have the ending of this story planned out, but it’s taking me way more plot that I expected to get there. I think there will probably be around two more chapters.
> 
> There’s some implications of past childhood sexual assault in this chapter and some implied rape threats. I felt the content was necessary with the way I am treating gender within ghoul society. With this in mind, I will do my best to be tasteful with my handling of triggering subjects.   
> I promise I will never ever write a rape scene, but I still urge everyone to heed the warnings.
> 
> College is kicking my ass, but I’ll try to update again within the next two weeks.

DAY ONE

“Motherfucker,” Ayu hisses from underneath the sink, following by a trio of loud clangs. 

Touka hovers at the doorway. “You sure you don’t want any help?”

“What would you do?” Ayu laughs breathlessly. More clanking noises. Something hisses. Ayu rolls out from under the sink, her pretty face smudged a little with dirt. “Okay, try it now.”

Touka steps around Ayu’s abandoned wheelchair and gingerly turns the faucet. Clean water gushes.

“Holy shit,” she says.

“Told you,” Ayu says, setting her wrench down. “Help me up.” 

Touka grabs her under the shoulders and lifts her into the chair. Ayu wheels over to the sink to splash water on her cheek. 

“This shit wouldn’t fool anyone,” Ayu says, gesturing at the bare pantry. “There’s no way we can let a plumber in here. Our pipes froze real bad a few years ago, there was no heat at all, so I took a class just as an introduction. Then I started vocational school.” She flexes her fingers. “When I start my apprenticeship I’ll make real money at it.”

“That’s amazing,” Touka says. She feels a wave of guilt that she’d assumed that Ayu just hung around the house all day folding clothes. 

Honestly, Touka had done more housework; before Ayu left for her classes at noon, she’d given Touka a list of chores to “earn her keep.” 

At first she thought Ayu was just trying to keep her busy and out of trouble. But she quickly realized she’s the only one who can easily clean the second-floor bathroom or vacuum the staircase. Both Ayu and the grandmother have trouble with stairs, and Kyoko works seventy hour weeks. It makes her feel a little better to know she’s not totally burdening the Koreedas.

“What time is it?” Ayu says, wheeling herself into the living room.

Touka checks the time on the burner phone Yomo gave her. “Almost six.”

Ayu frowns. 

“What?” Touka says, following her. 

Ayu shakes her head. “It’s nothing. Takami was supposed to be back an hour ago, is all.”

“From school?” Touka says. 

“He goes to the Yoshidas’ house after school because I have my training. Their daughter, Akane, is in his class. They don’t live too far away.” Ayu says it matter-of-fact, but the way her fingers pick at the hem of her t-shirt makes Touka think she’s more worried than she wants to let on.“Maybe I should give Ms. Yoshida a call.”  

Touka can tell she wants to ask but is too self-conscious. “I can go pick him up if you want,” she says. 

Ayu smiles in relief. “I actually hate talking to Ms. Yoshida,” she confesses. “She’s always judging me because I had Takami so young.” 

“What’s the house number?” Touka says, reaching for her sneakers. 

The Koreeda’s neighborhood is starting to become more familiar. She takes note of landmarks; the white house on the corner with an AC unit sticking out of each window, the slanted telephone pole sagging across the narrow street, a tiny playground with chain link fences, the blue house with a garden on the roof. The Yoshidas live about three blocks away, in a house framed by a gray stone barrier. She pushes the wooden fence open and walks up to the front door. 

The house reeks strongly of frying vegetables. She makes out a hint of ghoul but no more than that before she has to swallow down her gag reflexes. She knocks, shifting her weight as footsteps approach. A human in her thirties answers the door in a polka-dot apron, Ms. Yoshida probably. 

“Can I help you?” she says, eyeing Touka with suspicion. 

“Hi,” Touka says. “I’m Ayu’s cousin, Koreeda Touka. I’m here to pick Takami up. His mom wants him home for dinner.” She grins in a way she hopes looks friendly. 

“Oh!” Ms. Yoshida says, fear in her eyes. “Takami’s not here!”

“What?” Touka counts three heartbeats in the house, but she’s not familiar enough with Takami to tell if one belongs to him. “Did you send him home already?”

“No, I,” Ms. Yoshida grips her apron. “I took Akane and Takami to the playground after school. While we were there Takami’s father showed up and said Ayu asked him to take Takami for the day. He’s always so polite. I didn’t think-“ Her face is very pale. “Do you want me to call the police?” 

Touka plasters on her customer service smile. “I guess Ayu just forgot to tell me that she’d sent Takami’s dad. It’s probably fine. Thank you.” She turns and walks away stiffly. It takes Ms. Yoshida another moment to close the door.

Shit . Her skin crawls. She digs her fingernails into her palms as she walks back into the street.

She stops at the playground. There aren’t any kids there, and there aren’t any distractions to block out of the lingering smell of ghoul. They must have been here less than half an hour ago. Hyena had been careless, and he and Takami left their scents all over the place. She follows the trail for a few blocks before it starts to fade. 

The wind blows, and she smells ghoul again. She looks up, examines the apartment buildings on either side of the street. The smell is coming from the two-story building on her left, she’s pretty sure. 

She approaches the building. She hears a voice, high and young, from one of the apartments at the end. Takami. She picks up her pace. 

She wants to knock the door down, but common sense makes her grit her teeth and knock. Someone moves inside. The door opens.

Hyena grins down at her. He’s wearing only a pair of boxers. Last night she hadn’t noticed how tall he is. She stares up at him, unyielding.

“Touka?” Takami pipes up. She tips her head, looking around Hyena’s body. Takami sits on a threadbare couch, his book bag next to him. He’s holding a playstation controller. 

Hyena inhales deep. “You’re Ayu’s cousin from last night, right?” he says. “Takami told me about you.” 

Touka pushes past him and into the apartment. It’s tiny, dirty clothes flung all over the floor, all the lights on. “Takami, your mom wants you to come home.”

“We’re playing mario cart,” Takami says, pulling his knees up to his lap.

“You can play later,” Touka says. She watches Hyena, and he watches her back. “You gotta do your homework.”

Takami nods, sliding off the couch and swinging his bookbag over his shoulders. 

“You know, maybe I’ll come over,” Hyena says. He rummages around on the floor, pulling a pair of kids’ sneakers out of the mess and handing them over to his kid. He steps back, leaning against the door while Takami ties the laces. “I haven’t seen your mom in a while.”

“But we’re eating tonight,” Takami says, a little cautiously. 

“A family dinner. That sounds like fun.” Hyena’s still watching her, and she can tell he’s taunting her. “Me and my kid and my beautiful wife.” 

Touka sticks her hand out, and Takami takes it obediently. 

“You don’t want to fuck with this family anymore,” Touka tells Hyena in a calm voice. “I’ll kill you, easy.”

Hyena’s eyes go wide. Takami clutches her hand. 

“Spidergirl’s got venom, does she?” Hyena says, bringing his smile back. “You know, I don’t think I remember Ayu mentioning anything about a cousin coming to visit.” 

“I’m not fucking around,” Touka says, yanking the door open. “I really will kill you. Stay away from Takami.”

She ushers Takami out, and slams the door behind them. Takami clenches her hand hard, staring up at her with big eyes. 

“Sorry about that,” Touka says softly. “I shouldn’t have done that in front of you.” 

Takami nods. “Is my mom worried?”

“Not too worried. Did he do anything to you?” 

Takami shakes his head. “He just wanted to see me,” he says. “Since I’m his only kid.” He clutches her hand tighter. “Thank you for rescuing me.” 

She squeezes his hand back, and then, like a stupid naive idiot, she says, “Always.” 

* * *

She tells Ayu in short, angry sentences, what had happened. Ayu looks scared, and then she looks resigned, and she tells Touka she will handle it.

It makes Touka think maybe this has happened before. Ayu’s nervous fidgeting makes more sense.

Kyoko steps through the front door just as Touka is setting the table, Takami setting out cups of iced coffee. Touka helps the grandmother to the table as Kyoko showers and changes into her uniform for the night job. At some point Ayu must have told Kyoko what happened, because the atmosphere all through the meal is tense and stilted.

Touka tries to eat slowly. She can’t remember the last time she ate with other people like this, except when she was playing at human.

She and Ayu clear the dishes while Kyoko gets ready for her night shift. The house is quiet after Kyoko leaves. She goes to sleep before ten, earlier than she ever went to sleep back when she lived in the twentieth ward.

She wakes to the sound of voices in the bedroom below hers. A low male growl. Ayu’s voice high and quiet. 

“-scare me.”

“I’m sorry, baby. I won’t do it again.”

“That’s what you said last time,” Ayu says, quieter. 

Touka realizes the voice is Ryota’s. She breathes evenly to mimic the sounds of sleep. 

“He could have been lost. He could have been  dead . Doves could’ve-“

“You need to stop spoiling him. Takami’s a man. You can’t always-“

“He’s not a man, he’s  six .” Ayu says with a little anger. “If you want to be in our kid’s life then you need to be careful with him and you need to respect me as his mother.”

A pause. “I brought the meat by,” Ryota says. “I put most of it in the freezer. It’s all wrapped up, the way you like it.”

“Thank you,” Ayu says shortly.

“I really am sorry, baby,” Ryota says, voice sickly with sincerity. “I just know you’re so busy, looking after the kid and your classes and this house. I thought I’d watch him for a while.” 

“I’m handling it.” 

“Right,” Ryota says. “Touka’s helping you out?”

Another pause.

“She won’t be here for long,” Ayu says.

“I’m not dumb, darling. She threatened to kill me, you know?”

“Don’t fuck with her. She’d do it.”

“I guess twentieth ward ghouls are a different breed.”

“She’s not-“

“I  know your father’s side of the family and I know she’s not your cousin, sweetie. She can’t help you. She’s just a kid. I have that job at the bank now. If you let me, I could really help you out-“

“Ryota, I-“

“No, just listen. Think about it. You’re here all by yourself, taking care of everyone when you really need to be taken care of.”

“I don’t-“

“Listen,” he says, cutting her off again. “Kyoko has to work all the time just so you guys can keep this house. It’s way too much for her. If you let me, I could make things so much easier. I could live here with you and help you pay the rent. I could help look after Takami. I’d be so good to you, baby.”

“I can’t,” Ayu says, in a resigned way that makes Touka think she’s had this conversation a dozen times before. “I can’t have you here. I just can’t.” 

“Because you’re afraid of me,” he says.

She doesn’t say anything for a heartbeat. 

“In a year I’ll have my apprenticeship,” she says. “I’ll be making good money. I don’t need you.”

He says, “Who’s going to hire a cripple like you?”

“You don’t know anything,” Ayu says thickly. 

“I’m sorry,” he simpers. “Baby, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I just get so crazy around you. You know I love you, right?” 

“You don’t always act like it,” Ayu whispers.

“I do, I do. I really am sorry. I’d hire, you okay? You can fix my pipes all you want.”

Ayu chokes out a laugh. “That was awful.” 

“You love it.”

The bed creaks as bodies move. Touka turns over, burying her face into her pillow. She thinks, what a horrible ghoul. Acting just like a human man. She doesn’t understand.  

* * *

 

DAY TWO

Touka only has one memory of her mom. It was morning; she remembers the bright cool light streaming through windows. She’s sitting at their kitchen table, swinging her chubby legs. Her mom kneels in front of her, lacing her boots. Her mom ties the last knot, looks up at her, and smiles bright. She says something. Touka can’t remember what, can’t even remember the sound of her voice. 

Now she’s older, seventeen and skinny, and her mom’s hands are shaking. “My darling baby bird,” her mother says, and her voice sounds like Mrs. Fuegechi’s. There are deep bruises on her throat, like she’s been choked hard.Blood runs from her kagune eyes. 

“Rabbit, are you listening to me?” She kneels in front of Touka, lacing up her battered sneakers. Her nails are torn down to her stump. She ties the last lace, and looks up, and she smiles. She says, “Are you just going to let them kill me?” 

When Touka wakes, she thinks for a minute that her dream was real. As she comes into awareness, she realizes it’s over and done, that everyone is already dead. 

She sits up. Yuuki’s room is dark, the moonlight weak. She sits there in the dark, in the reality where she was never able to change anything. Her cheeks are wet, but she doesn’t feel sad; she must have cried while she was dreaming.

She goes back to sleep, and dreams of Anteiku burning. When she wakes again she doesn’t feel anything except tired and a little lonely.

It’s morning now. She showers, listening to Ayu scold Takami as he dawdles on getting ready for school. She goes down into the kitchen, her hair dripping onto her t-shirt, just as Ayu shoes him out the door.

“There’s coffee in the pot,” Ayu says, scooping her wallet up from the kitchen table. “Can you bring grandmother her coffee and sugar cubes later?”

Touka nods, opening the cupboard to grab a mug. “Hey,” she says, hesitating in front of the coffee pot. “Do the Scavengers watch the perimeters of the territory? Or are there not enough of them?”

“Don’t go getting yourself in trouble,” Ayu says, teasingly, even though she narrows her eyes. 

“I’m just wondering,” Touka says, pouring her cup. 

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” Ayu says, wheeling herself to the door. “Please try not to get into any gang fights before I get back.”

Touka salutes her. 

She wears the stolen black sneakers, the old black and blue striped shirt she was wearing when they ran from their motel room, and a ruffled white skirt she found in the drawers in her room. Ayu reassured her that it was fine to wear any of the clothes in the room, but to Touka it still feels like looting, like undressing a corpse and going through their wallet. 

Mrs. Koreeda is still waking up, but her kakugan is already dark and glowing. She gets up with a little help, and makes it the bathroom on her own. Touka fetches the newspaper and her magnifying glasses.

“I heard you talking to my granddaughter,” she says absentmindedly, running her finger underneath a block of text. “I know you can handle yourself, but be careful.” She taps a picture. “The doves are getting anxious.”

Touka leans in close to read the headline.  CHECKPOINTS AT TWENTIETH WARD BORDERS: MILITARY TO INSTALL RC CELL READERS.

She gnashes her teeth. “Like that’ll stop one of us. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means that they’re going to take more measures to keep us out of their world,” Mrs. Koreeda says, drinking her bloody coffee. She sets down the cup and flicks Touka on the nose. “You have any money?”

“I don’t need any-“ 

Mrs. Koreeda ignores her, opening a drawer with trembling hands and fishing out two 1000 yen bills. “Take it in case you need to catch a bus. And get yourself some comic books. Kids need comic books.”

Touka takes the money, swallowing. “I can’t-“

“And buy me a lottery ticket on your way back. Today’s my lucky day.” With that Mrs. Koreeda waves her from the room. 

It’s a hot, hot day. She walks without direction, keeping her head up for a sign she recognizes. She hasn’t been alone for a while, since before the raid, really.

Now she has a little time to breathe, absorbing the quiet laziness of the residential street. She walks in the opposite direction of the playground. 

Most adults are at work, their kids at school. She smells car exhaust, trash, dog hair, sweat, urine, dust, cooking oil, lots and lots of human. Ghoul. 

The scent is unfamiliar, not Takami’s father. She’s pretty sure a ghoul or maybe even a ghoul family lives on the street a few blocks down from the Koreedas. It makes her tense up a bit to walk past the street, but she doesn’t go investigate further. The ghouls in this territory avoid identifying each other’s faces for a reason. 

She passes two more maybe ghoul families on her way to the twentieth ward border. No one bothers her. She looks like just another kid skipping class and dripping sweat. 

She stops a street away from the intersections at the edge of the fifteenth and twentieth ward border and watches for a minute. There’s a checkpoint for passengers on the sidewalk, one for cars and one for busses. People get out of their cars to pass through the reader, while guards climb onto the busses. To get through to the twentieth, everyone has to pass through one of the RC scanners.

She circles back, keeping her head down and doing her best to look casual. These blocks were set up in less than a day. There’s no way they’re along the entire border. 

She thinks about taking to the roofs, but the last thing she needs is another chase. Inside, she cuts down a narrow street into a residential area. She jumps across a couple fences, crosses a few more streets. There aren’t any checkpoints this far away from the main intersection, and when she stars to recognize street signs and buildings, she knows she’s made it into the twentieth ward. 

She tries to plan out her actions in her head, but she doesn’t have her fucking phone with her. She swipes a paper map from a convenience store display, along with a ballpoint pen. She sits at a park bench and thinks for a minute. 

She circles where Anteiku used to be with a pen. Her heart gives an annoying little pang. She ignores it and walks her fingers over to the motel where they’d stayed, about a mile away. She doesn’t remember the exact location, but she pinpoints an elementary school she knew it’d been near, and circles it.

On the side of the map, she writes down  Ryuga . Saki. The Kimuras. Satomi and her brother. Mitani family. 

She’d been to Ryuga’s apartment a year ago to help him move in. She had no idea if he still lived there; he was always loosing his job, and Irimi gave him coffee in exchange for washing dishes. She circles where she think the apartment might be, about half a mile from the motel. 

Saki, she didn’t know where she lived but she knew where she worked, a department store only a few blocks from the cafe. She circles the store. 

She didn’t know where the Kimuras lived but she knew their kids went to the elementary school near the motel. She circles the school a few times. With any luck they lived close by. 

She’d brought Satomi meat maybe two years ago, when she was too injured to leave her apartment. She knew she’d only been allowed because Satomi was desperate; Satomi jumped at loud noises, never told anything about her background, and was as likely to kill her as help her. 

The Mitani family lives on the other end of the ward, over a mile from the motel. They probably hadn’t seen anything. She circles their street anyway. 

Mr. Toshinori lives only a few blocks away from where she was right now, but he’d tried to grab her more than once. She’d only talk to him as a last resort. There’d been another ghoul, Suzuki, who lived on the same street as her apartment, but Suzuki had probably already fled to her family in Osaka. 

At night she might check out hunting grounds, but she doubts anyone would be out hunting right now. 

For a second she thinks that maybe Irimi and Koma are still alive, and she can go ask them for help, but her lungs start to tighten and her head buzzs and she drops the pen and chokes on the panic. 

After a minute she stands. She folds the the map into quarters, holding it tightly in her palm, making plans to burn it. If anyone even looks at her funny, she’s ripping it to shreds before she even starts running. Old man Yoshimura destroyed all the records for a reason. She’ll be damned if she undoes any of their sacrifices. 

She goes to Ryuga’s apartment first since she actually knows where he lives. She helped him drag a huge aging couch up three flights of stairs. The building has upgraded since then, and she takes the elevator.

Once she gets to his floor she knows it’s useless. The whole hall smells of nothing but human, and there’s no sign of the disgusting cigarettes Ryuga loves. Still, she knocks on the door, biting down on her disappointment.

A woman in her early thirties answers the doors in nothing but a tank top and boxers. “Can I help you?” she asks in a bored tone. 

“Hi,” she says. “My friend used to live here. Did he give you a forwarding address when he moved out?”

The woman disappears for a minute, then returns with a stack of mail. She thrusts it into Touka’s hands. 

“Here,” she says.

Touka turns the mail over. “There’s no address,” she says.

“Yeah, but if you find the guy, can you give him his mail? We were going to throw it out anyway.”

With that, the woman slams the door in her face. Touka dumps the mail on her doorstep and takes the stairs down. 

She heads to the elementary school where the Kimura kids go. She circles around the school, not smelling any ghouls. With the amount of human kids to drown them out, she’s not surprised. 

She could wait a few hours for school to let out, then follow the kids home. Still, that’d be way too creepy, and she has no guarantee the kids even came to school today. She circles the block again, making a wider loop. 

She walks down a sidestreet, keeping her nose in the air and listening, wishing her senses were as good as Hinami’s or Irimi’s. She turns back, goes down another street until she reaches the school. Chooses another block to follow. Then another.

After about half an hour of this she’s thinking of maybe heading to Saki’s work when she catches a whiff of ghoul. She circles the block until the smell strengthens in front of a newer two-story house with a nice little yard. The street is still and quiet. She listens closely, picking out maybe two heartbeats inside.

The door slams open. Takatski Miyu storms across the porch, his kakugan glowing. He stops at the top of the steps. She doesn’t flinch back, even though she’s never seen that expression his face. He’s a few years older than her, twenty-two maybe, the little brother of the Mrs. Kimura. He works in construction, and he always stops to get a coffee when his shift ends early in the morning.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he says. 

Touka straightens her shoulders. “I’m looking for someone,” she says. “The Fuegechi kid. Remember her?”

“Haven’t seen her.” He crosses his arms. 

She walks up the stairs, standing next to him. He moves back. “We were staying at a motel a few blocks from here, and we got separated,” she says. “I just want to know if you saw anything the morning of the raid. If you heard anyone running outside, or smelled any ghouls.”

He laughs shortly. For a moment she thinks he’s not going to give her anything at all.

Then he says, “You wanna know if we saw anything.” 

He steps towards her, getting in her space. “Night of the raid, we watch the news. We stay indoors. The next day, we send the kids to school and go to work. Gotta act normal. Then my sister gets a phone call. Police looking at her credit card records and figured out she was a frequent visitor at Anteiku.”

“She explains that her work is real close and she always thought it was just a nice cafe. Says she’s horrified by news. We get home from work, and they’ve swept through the whole house. Human smell all over the kitchen, all over the pantry doors. I guess we had enough groceries to fool them. Or maybe we didn’t. Maybe they’re just waiting for an opportunity. We sent the kids to school with packed lunches. Tell them they have to eat in front of everyone.”

“My youngest niece is blind, and my sister can’t generate a kagune. We can’t go to the twenty-fourth ward. We’re not going to win survival of the fittest. Our only option is to blend in.” His shoulders slump. “You can’t be here, Touka. You’re going to get us killed.” 

Touka’s throat is clogged. She swallows a couple times. She says, “I just want to find my family. After all Mr. Yoshimura did for you, can’t you help me back?” 

He walks back into the house and shuts the door. 

She wants to be understanding and rational. The anger roaring inside of her is nauseating. She bites down hard on the inside of her cheek to keep from screaming.

She thinks about maybe going back to the fifteenth ward, lying down on that dead girl’s bed and letting everything keep happening without her. She looks up at the sun. It’s not even fucking noon.

She jogs across the ward in the direction of Saki’s workplace.

She makes a big circle around Anteiku, keeping at least three blocks away. She knows it’s weak of her, but she doesn’t care.

Even during a weekday, the street where Saki works is filled with pedestrians. Touka keeps alert as she crosses the street into the store, watching out for doves. 

An employee in the ugly red uniform greets her at the door, even though it’s probably obvious Touka can’t afford much in here. “You looking for anything special today?” she gushes.

“My, uh, my friend? Saki? Is she on shift?” 

“Oh, she’s at the fitting rooms.” The employee points.

Touka moves through the store a little more cautiously, trying to look as unthreatening as possible. If Saki tells her to leave she’s giving up and going back to the fifteenth ward. 

Saki’s sorting through a pile of clothes. She grins a little nervously as Touka approaches. “Thought all of you guys skipped town.” 

Touka glances from left to right. She doesn’t hear any customers in the changing rooms. The closest customer is knee-deep in a rack of skirts. “Not all of us.” 

Saki’s expression holds for a little longer before she stares at Touka with desperation. “Is Kaya dead?” she asks. 

Touka doesn’t say anything for a long moment. The store hums with from the AC and the dumb pop music coming from the speakers.

“I was watching the news,” Saki says. “I saw Dobers die. I don’t know if.”

“I don’t know either,” Touka lies.

Saki nods. “I went to her place last night,” she says. “She, she must have run. Maybe she’s hiding in the twenty-fourth.”

“Yeah,” Touka says.

“I just wish she would call me,” Saki says. “We used to date, you know. Well, it was a long time ago.” She fits a t-shirt onto a coat hanger, then moves on to another pile. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m looking for Hinami. Remember her? The Fuegechi daughter.”

“Oh, yeah.” Saki looks at her intensely. “When’d you last see her?”

“Two days ago. Morning of. The doves tried to grab us in our sleep. We ran but we were - we were separated.”

“Yeah, okay. Yeah. Look, I don’t live in the twentieth. I commute from the eighteenth, I go to school there.” 

“Oh,” Touka says, deflating a little.

“Look, listen,” Saki says, leaning in. “I saw her, okay?”

“What?” Touka straightens.

“Shh,” Saki says. “Shh, shh.” She looks around nervously. “I don’t know if I can talk about it here.”

“When did you see her?”

“Last night. Shit. My manager’s coming over.” 

“Was she okay?” 

“She was with these people - look-“

“Other ghouls?” 

“Yeah - You know eighteenth ward is Blades territory, right?”

“Yeah,” Touka says, pretending like she knows what Saki’s talking about.

“You’re not going to like this. Shitshitshit. I’m going to tell you in a bit, okay? After work. I get my lunch at one. I’ll meet you at the cafe across the street. Get out of here before you get me fired!”

Touka ducks back behind a clothing rack just as the manager stomps up to Saki. She flits out of the store and back into the heat. Her heart beats fast. Hinami’s alive and in the eighteenth ward.

Why the  hell would she be there.

The cafe across the street is kind of crowded, filled with humans eating disgusting sandwiches and shit. She orders a black coffee, pays with some of the money Mrs. Koreeda gave her, and gets a window seat.

Hinami must be freaked out. She’s never been on her own like this. Blades. She knows fuck all about the Blades. If they’re other ghouls and Hinami’s still alive, at least they’re not going to cannibalize her. She guesses if other ghouls found out about Hinami’s senses, they’d want her on their side. Maybe she’s their captive or something.

Shit, how the fucking hell did Hinami get to the eighteenth ward.

She glares straight out the window. A group of high school girls passes. She processes the uniform, then flinches a little in shock. One of the girls looks up, and she realizes with slow horror what the universe is going to do to her.

Yoriko makes eye contact with her. Touka stares. Yoriko stops walking and stares back.

Another one of the girl bumps into Yoriko. She stops and says something, then looks up. Recognizes Touka. Waves at her. Juji or something. They’ve studied together like, twice. The other girl stops. It’s Riho, the girl who sits next to Yoriko. 

Riho says something. Touka can’t hear what over the blood roaring in her ears. Yoriko bites her lip. Riho turns back and Juji and Yoriko follow, and Touka knows what’s going to happen because, as she’s starting to figure out, her life is a fucked-up joke.

The three girls enter the cafe, and Riho skips up to her. 

“Hi, Touka! We were looking for somewhere to eat! Can we eat with you?”

Touka stares at her. Riho must take this as a yes, because she skips over to the line to order. Juji follows her. 

Yoriko sits down. 

“You’re not going to order?” Touka managers, her voice cracking.

“I brought my own lunch,” Yoriko says, opening her backpack. “I hope they don’t think it’s rude.” Her gaze flicks over Touka’s hands, Touka’s cup. “I thought ghouls couldn’t eat human food.”

Touka wants to die. “We can drink coffee,” she says.

“Coffee,” Yoriko says. She opens up her lunch and takes a big bite. “I guess that makes sense.” 

Riho flops down next to Touka. “Dude, I can’t believe we just ran into you here! Is this what you’ve been doing? Sitting in cafes? Man, that’s boring.”

“What?” Touka says. “I’m, um, I’m waiting for someone.”

“Oooh,” Riho says. 

“What are we oohing about?” Juji says, sitting down next to her. 

“Touka’s got a hot date!” Riho says. 

“No,” Touka says, flushing for some reason. “It’s not like that. She’s going to, uh-“

“She?” Juji says, raising her eyebrows. “Who’s this she you’re meeting, Touka?”

Yoriko is staring at her. Touka chugs the rest of her coffee.

“She’s helping me with studying. Since I’m falling behind.”

“Dude, you’re falling behind because you’re skipping,” Riho points out.

“Aren’t you guys skipping?” Touka says, a little desperately. 

“We got let out early to study. Since exams are so soon.” Juji’s frowning at her. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah,” Touka mutters.

Yoriko stabs at her rice with her chopsticks. 

“Are you really studying?” Juji asks, her brows furrowed up. “Seriously, you can’t be skipping class like this so close to exams.”

Touka shrugs. She glances up at the clock above the register. 12:45. Fuck it.

“I actually forgot something really important I have to be doing,” she says, standing up. Yoriko looks up at her.

“We just got here,” she says. “Don’t go. Or are you trying to avoid us?”

“I thought you wouldn’t want to see me,” Touka says, without really thinking about. “I thought you wanted me to turn myself in.”

“Turn yourself in?” Riho says, wide-eyed. “Touka, did you shoplift or something?” 

“No,” Touka says quietly. “It was a lot worse than that. See, I was born wrong. And my whole life I’ve been a stain on the world. I’m a drain on society. If you add up the numbers, it would be a whole lot better if I were dead. Isn’t that right, Yoriko?”

Riho and Juji both have their mouths open. Yoriko’s clenching her chopsticks tightly, her shoulders tense. 

“Isn’t that right?” Touka repeats. 

“Dude, did you act shitty to Touka just because she’s poor?” Riho snaps. “Not cool.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Yoriko says, her voice barely a whisper. “I didn’t mean I wanted you to be dead. I just wanted-“

“Trust me,” Touka says, knowing she’s causing a scene, knowing it doesn’t matter anyway because she was never going to go back to this life. “This is how this world works. Either you’re okay with the fucked-up reality of my existence, or you want me dead.” 

She turns and leaves, throwing the door open, feeling like she’s won but not feeling particularly good about it. 

“Kirishima?” Saki gasps, stepping onto the sidewalk from the street. “You okay?”

“Fine.” Touka glances back. Yoriko is watching her from the glass window. 

She thinks that maybe, if she sat down with Yoriko and Touka told her every ugly little truth about her life, about all the people she killed when she was younger, that Yoriko would listen. She would tell Touka it wasn’t her fault, it was the world that was wrong, not the starving teenage girl and her younger brother. She would be understand, she would hug Touka hard, and she would make it all okay. 

And it can’t ever be okay.

Too many people are dead. Her mother and her father, and their mothers and fathers before them. She has to carry this ache around with her forever. 

She turns away. 

“I’m okay,” she tells Saki. “I think we should get out of here. You don’t want to be seen with me for too long.”

They end up in the alley behind the department store, next to a dumpster. Saki smokes a cigarette while Touka paces. 

“You’re not going to like this,” Saki says again. 

“I don’t care,” Touka snaps. “Just tell me what you know.” 

“She was in the eighteenth ward with some of the Blades Ghouls.”

“So they captured her.”

“No.” Saki shakes her head. “She was walking with them. They weren’t pulling her along or anything. One of them patted her on the head. I saw her smile.”

Touka’s heart gives a painful tug. “I guess after she got lost, she just needed to find others.” She can’t fault Hinami for that. “Where are these Blades located? Do you know how to get in contact with them? What do you know about them?” 

Saki frowns. “They came from the twenty-fourth ward, but I think they live aboveground now. They come by every month for the ward fees, but they’re all pretty nice about. I’ve met their leader, Three-Blades Miza, once. She’s okay, but she only really cares about her people. Their ward fees are really high.” 

“Okay,” Touka says impatiently. “So where do they live?”

“No, Kirishima, listen. The Blades, they’ve been doing errands for Aogori lately.” 

Touka stops pacing. She chews her lip, rubs her face with her hands. She says, “Okay. Okay.” She shakes her head. “Hinami must be really scared. She’s with these guys because she’s all alone. She must not know about-“

“Touka!” Saki snaps. “She went all the way to the eighteenth on purpose, Touka! And with her ears, how could she not know?” Saki stubs her cigarette out with the heel of her shiny work shoes. “She went to join Aogori on purpose.”

“No,” Touka says.

“It makes sense,” Saki brings out her phone, checks something. “Everyone knows they’re the ones with power. They’re getting bigger, too. Joining up with them was a smart choice. Maybe I’ll do the same.” 

Touka says, “How do I get in contact with the Blades?”

Saki puts her phone away and looks at Touka for a long moment, considering. “You can’t fight Aogori all by yourself,” Saki says. “Not for a girl who doesn’t even want to be saved.”

“She can’t,” Touka says, a lump in her throat. “She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She can’t want this. She can’t want to be involved with those monsters. They’re the worst of all ghouls. They might hurt her. They might make her hurt other people.” 

“I’m sorry,” Saki says, like she really means it. “I gotta get back to work.” 

* * *

Touka has six hundred yen in her pocket. She has a ruffled white skirt and a blue blouse borrowed from a dead girl. She has a place to sleep and a fake name she’s getting better at responding to.

She calls Yomo’s burner from a pay phone outside the train line. He doesn’t answer. She grinds her teeth and calls again. 

No response.

She doesn’t know what she expected. 

She walks along the subway line, alone in the dark. At this time of night the trains run on the hour. Back at the house, the grandmother is sleeping. Takami is watching TV, knees to his chest. Ayu tallies numbers in the account book, subtracting meat prices and the scavenger’s extortion fees along with rent and bills. Kyoko won’t be home from her second job for another few hours.

Touka thinks about going back. Kicking her shoes off and toeing them into the neat row at the door. She would help Ayu wrestle Takami into bed. When Kyoko got home from work, she would heat up broth while the older woman showered. 

Tomorrow she would fold laundry and help Ayu bathe grandmother, and when Takami came home from school she would watch him while Ayu went to her evening classes. 

Maybe Ryota would come over and take Takami out, or flirt with Ayu, or stay for dinner. Touka would scowl at him, but she wouldn’t start a fight, because Ayu and Kyoko say it’s okay and this is their world and they know it best. 

She can go back and go to sleep and wake up and things would be okay. She can tell things are going to be okay here. She likes the house a lot, likes her tiny room even though it used to belong to a different girl, a girl who’s probably dead. 

And then Yomo will come back, and he’ll have a new ID for her, and a new place to live, and she’ll have a new name to get used to. 

She’s not stupid. She has dove blood under her fingernails, she has a useless family registrar and Hikari’s ukaku bursting from her shoulder blades. She doesn’t belong in this world, this peaceful ghoul world where you don’t leave the ward without approval, where a man gets to play video games with your kid even though he had sex with you when you were fourteen and he was twenty.

When she was twelve and Ayato was almost ten, they lived in abandoned building in the San’ya area of the 6th ward. There wasn’t electricity or heat, but by then they’d been on the streets for a while, and a roof over their heads was an upgrade. They washed their clothes in a faucet down the street and decorated their squat with rocks and plastic flowers. 

She liked San’ya well enough. All the humans that lived there were as poor as they were; half of them lived in the streets, the other half in buildings not any better than theirs. There were even a few humans squatting on the floor below them. When she hunted, she made sure not to kill any of their neighbors. 

When it started to get too cold, she and Ayato would spend their nights in one of the churches on the corner, curled up on the pews. They always turned down a spot in line at the food kitchen, and she’s pretty sure the priest knew they weren’t normal kids. Still, he gave her a winter coat, and got Ayato an action figure for Christmas.

There were a few other ghouls in the area. Another kid, a boy younger than Ayato, who slept in an alley and wouldn’t tell anyone his name. A middle-aged woman with no hair who talked to herself and only ate meat if it died of natural causes. 

There was a pair of old ladies who lived in a different abandoned building down the street. They would lecture Touka on her bloody knuckles and teach the Kirishimas some rules. The difference in Kagune types. Warning signs for Doves in the area. How to hide a kill. 

The trouble started when the weather got warmer. The sixth ward was ruled by a dozen different small gangs. During the winter they hunkered down and stayed put in their hovel like everyone else. Sometime during spring, though, Touka made a kill only a few blocks from a small gang hideout, and she did it a little too messily. The San’ya ghouls figured out some kids were squatting in their territory, and they went looking. 

There were only five or six of them, all male, ranging from their early teens to almost forty, old for a ghoul. Touka heard them coming in the night. She and Ayato barely had time to put their shoes on before there were footsteps pounding through the first floor of their building.

The San’ya ghouls had the numbers, but Touka was vicious and fighting for her life. She held her own for a good minute, enough time for Ayato to find an escape route out a window. They fled. Slunk along the river, scrubbed the scent out of their clothes with melting snow. It didn’t take long for the two of them to reach the edge of San’ya, but the smell of other ghouls made her hesitate. After a few months of stability, they didn’t want to give up the place where they’d felt safe. They decided to stay and keep out of the way.

The San’ya ghouls, bleeding and furious, tore through the streets. They killed the nameless boy who refused to leave his alley squat. They broke the bald woman’s neck after taking turns with her body. They ate a homeless man who lived on the first floor of their building, and they waited for the Kirishimas to come back. 

Touka doesn’t have memories of when she was little. San’ya blends together with Hyakunicho and Ueno and Shibuya. Still, that night was when she figured out how the world really for ghouls like her and Ayato, ghouls without family registrars or support systems. 

The Sun’ya ghouls caught her and Ayato on the street corner. Told her they wouldn’t hurt her if she asked nicely. One of them went to kill Ayato while the other pinned her to the ground and started figuring out the mechanics of raping her. 

Ayato had used his kagune before, but only in short bursts. Still, the ukaku spray was enough to distract the ghoul pinning her down, enough for her to squirm free and fight back in earnest. 

The odds weren’t awful, and it wasn’t like no one had ever tried to hurt her before, so it wasn’t like she was shocked or emotionally unstable or anything, but the battle went on and on, way past her ukaku’s weak stamina. She would tear into a ghoul, ripping him open, and then her kagune would splutter and she’d end up fighting hand and fist, punching into muscle and crushing bone. 

Sometimes they would manage to grab her, bashing her head into something in an effort to kill her or knock her unconscious. Sometimes they would try to get back to the fucking part, one of them actually managing to hold her down long enough to pull her jeans off before Ayato took his head off. The war waged on. 

She lost fingers, toes, part of her ribcage. A rinkaku punched into her chest, putting her out of the fight for about half an hour while Ayato struggled to hold off the others. She ate a few bites of the homeless guy they killed and managed to summon her Ukaku again. They fought until the sun started to rise and the Doves came, in trucks and helicopters, bearing guns loaded with quinque bullets and weapons made from dead limbs. They scattered, along with the San’yu ghouls, the fighting put on hold.

That was just how it was back then. You got hurt and you got better or you died. When they were little, Touka was the only one who could fight. She got stronger. Ayato developed his Kagune, and they began to work together as a pair. They started winning battles, and killing anyone who would hurt them. They went wild, because they could; because they had to. 

She forgot for a while, or maybe she got better at lying to herself. She started to think maybe she could blend, go to school and work a job and live in a place with heat and water. She should have known better. 

Deep down they were monsters, teeth stained with blood and eyes glowing red. She’s glad that Yoriko knows. It was better not to lie anymore. 

A train rushes past her in the dark, whipping her hair into her face. She leans against the chain link fence separating the street from the train tracks. She breathes in the scent of exhaust and oil and thinks very seriously about being dead. 

Footsteps behind her. She recognizes the smell. 

“Hey, spider-girl,” Ryota says. “Thinking about taking a trip?”

“I could kick your head off if I wanted,” she says without turning. “Rip out your heart and eat it in front of you.”

“That’s twentieth ward Rabbit for you,” he says.

She turns slowly, registering another half dozen heartbeats as other ghouls approach from the surrounding streets, jumping down from rooftops. 

Ryota is wearing his Hyena mask. 

“Did Ayu tell you?” she says, trying not to sound like she cares.

“Raccoon here was a regular at Anteiku,” he says, nodding his head at one of approaching Scavengers.“He recognized your voice the first night.” 

“Okay,” she says, curling her lip. “I guess you guys think you can take me?”

Someone moves in the corner of her eye. She jerks back, just out of reach of Weasel’s Kagune. 

Someone else crashes into her, forcing her back into the fence. It rattles loud. Her cheek presses against the chain. She snarls, twisting on her attack. Then Ryoto is right in her face, smashing a punch into her stomach. 

She hits the ground, gagging. She rolls over before someone can kick her, her kagune tearing to life as she jumps back to her feet. She manages to slash Ryoto across the face, breaking open that mask and cutting bloody streaks into that ugly smirk of his. 

He roars and falls back, but before she can deliver a second strike Vulture is on top of her, kicking her into the street again. They planned this, planned to get close to limit the movements of an ukaku user. But they won’t beat her. She’s strong, she’s so strong, she and Ayato killed tougher ghouls than this. 

She tries to roll again, but Vulture kicks her good in the ribs. She feels the bone break, and screams bloody murder. Lights turn on in the apartments surrounding them. 

Vulture kicks her ribs again, then breaks her jaw. She whines wordlessly through the pain. He kicks her in the ribs, the arm, over and over. She shoves back, throwingh him off-balance enough for her to scramble from the pavement. 

Vulture’s kagune rips out of his back, Rikkaku tentacles twisting around her. She kicks out with all her strength, breaking the tentacles before they can tighten around her broken ribs. She jumps up, bouncing off Vulture’s back, getting air, getting space. She lands a few feet away, out of grasp from the crowd. 

Blood gushes from her mouth. She can’t remember the last time she felt this much pain. She raises her fists. Her head spins.

Ryoto tackles into her her.

“Stay down, bitch,” he snarls into her ear as she struggles against the pavement. “We won’t hurt you anymore than we have to.” 

 

* * *

DAY THREE

She comes back into consciousness once while they carry her, but not enough to do more than squirm a little. She wakes again, and catches glimpses of warm lights, the sensation of rough fabric on her shoulders, the hum of an air conditioner before her mind drifts once more. 

The pain wakes her up in a state of panic. There are tears rolling down her cheeks, she’s shaking and making little mumbling sounds, unable to absorb any of the sensory information.Hands grab her face and she paws at them. Fingers pull and pry at her jaw, cracking the half-healed bone, forcing her jaw back into place. Duct tape goes over her chin and back to her ears, sealing her mouth shut. 

“Shhh,” the person wrapping the duct tape whispers as she repeats the movement. “I just wanna make sure your jaw heals properly.” 

Touka whimpers quietly. The person - the girl- seals the duct tape around her jaw, then leaves Touka alone. The lights are too hot and bright. She shuts her eyes and covers her face with her hands. 

The pain is thick, but eventually she starts to work through it and make sense of her thoughts. She thinks, they beat me, and she thinks, they got me. 

She opens her eyes. All the hot lights are turned off. Morning light filters through the open window. She’s in a living room of some kind. In front of her, chairs, a coffee table. She sees the door.

She counts the heartbeats. Three, four maybe? Close by. She can’t think correctly. She tries to sit up, and her ribs protest.

“I’d stay down if I were you.”

Someone moves in front of her. A man sits down in the chair across from the coffee table. He leans back, his legs spread, his arms crosses. He’s in his early thirties, stubble on his jaw, his hair short and even. She doesn’t recognize his face, but when he sits like that she knows who he is.

“You’re a guest here,” Rat Yagira says. “We don’t want to make you into a captive.”

She narrows her eyes at him, and sits up, ignoring the pain. Her brain works sluggishly. She’s sitting on a couch of some kind, except it’s covered in a gray-stained sheet. There’s another set of sheets on the floor. 

A girl sets next to her, grabbing her shoulder and forcing her to sit back against the couch. She must be the girl who wrapped Touka’s jaw before. Weasel, Touka thinks. Underneath the mask she’s even younger than Touka, maybe fourteen at most. 

Another ghoul sits in the chair next to Yagira, a man, twenty-three or four, with a nose crooked from being broken. He glares at her like he’s got a grudge. Vulture, she thinks. 

“We know who you are, Kirishima,” Yagira says. “And I know you’re the Rabbit. A powerful ukaku ghoul. You’re the kind of ghoul we could really use on our side. So, what do you think? Will you fight for us?”

She points at her mouth, covered in duct tape.

“Oh, of course. I meant after you’ve healed. You’re our guest, after all.” Yagira laughs a little. “I just really want to bring you into the family as soon as possible. We just want some kind of confirmation that you’re going to be agreeable. You haven’t exactly inspired confidence with your behavior so far. And my brother, Koji,” he gestures to Vulture. “He’s really quite taken with you. What about it, Touka-chan? Will you marry my brother?”

She stares at him in disbelief. 

“Oh, I know you’ve only just met,” Yagira says, smiling a little. “You two can take your time, get to know each other. But I’m afraid the ceremony needs to happen today. See, legally, you’re a bit of a hindrance, Touka. If you marry Koji you can have a family register and you won’t have to worry about being picked up by doves. And it would make all of us feel better to know that you’ve really committed to being on our side.”

She starts to stand up. Another set of hands grabs her shoulder, forcing her back. She looks up. Ryota. She narrows her eyes and reaches up to rip the duct tape from her mouth. 

Weasel grabs her arm. Touka stiffens. Before she can really start to fight, Ryota is on top of her, trapping her into the couch cushions. Her ribs scream in protest. 

“I’m afraid you can’t take the tape off just yet,” Yagira says, standing up. A bikaku tail slithers around his legs as he steps closer. “I really don’t want to scare the neighbors.”

He lifts his Bikaku. 

She screams into the tape. Screams and scream, struggling violently at Ryota’s weight as Yagira saws into her. At some point Koji has to help Ryota hold her down. She can feel herself crying again, but it hurts too bad to care. 

Blood soaks through the sheets. She thinks maybe she pisses herself. After a while she checks out, floating from the pain until Yagira finishes. 

He climbs off her, throwing the severed limbs onto the floor. “Izumi, get some rags,” he says. “We don’t want her to bleed to death.” 

The girl flees from the room, returning a minute later. Touka has stopped fighting by now. She stares straight up at the ceiling, her head thick and sluggish.

Izumi presses the rags against the stumps while Yagira steps back, surveying his handiwork. “Here’s the deal,” he says. “Agree to marry my brother and join the scavengers, and we’ll let your legs grow back. Continue to defy me, and we’ll cut them off again and again, until they stop growing and you’re crippled for life. Well? What do you say?” 

Ryota tears the duct tape off her tender jaw. She licks her smarting lips gingerly. 

“What do you say, Touka?” Yagira says. 

“Go fuck yourself,” she rasps. 

He smiles. “I knew you’d be like this,” he says.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
